At a time when doubling farmerâ€™s income in the next five
years has become the catch phrase, the policy emphasis is on the oft-beaten
approach of boosting crop productivity, reducing the cost of cultivation,
expanding the area under irrigation and providing a unified national
agricultural market.
This makes me wonder. If increasing crop productivity, which
is what economists and policy makers have been relentlessly asking for, then
why is Punjab, the food bowl of India, faced with a terrible agrarian crisis?
In a State which has 98 per cent assured irrigation and where the per hectare
yields of wheat and rice match international levels I see no reason why farmers
should then be dying. Is there something that I am missing in my understanding
of agriculture or is it that the policy makers have still not be able to emerge
out of the tragic narrative of the past, so well crafted and hyped ?
Raising crop productivity is the only paradigm within which
agriculture has been understood and evaluated, says Richa Kumar in her
magnificently researched book Rethinking Revolutions. Richa Kumar teaches in
the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of
Technology, Delhi. Although she examines the politics of agriculture through
the prism of the â€˜Yellow Revolutionâ€™, which essentially began with the
introduction of soyabean cultivation in Central India, and subsequently propped
up with the advent of eChaupals, she dwells much deeper to successfully
demolish the popular notion that narrow, technological solutions alone are the
answer.
The popular notion behind any â€˜revolutionâ€™â€”green, yellow
white and blueâ€”is the remarkable ability to frame the agrarian crisis in terms
of production alone. If productivity increases, income of farmers also
increases. This dominant notion, prevalent for over 100 years, has established
firm roots. I must acknowledge that as a student of agriculture, I had realized
early that the entire effort by way of research, education and extension is to
programme (in IT parlance) the thinking of students around this dominant
narrative. And letâ€™s not forget that agricultural universities in India were
initially set up by USAID bringing in educational curriculum from the Land
Grant system of education from the United States.
The British built this notion to increase revenue
collections during the days of the Raj, but subsequently international
influence, reinforced through expanding agribusiness interests, has put a stamp
on it. Those farmers who obediently follow the scientific prescriptions to
achieve ...